By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.
Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
35 min read · 7,259 words- 0:00 – 4:19
Emergence of the commercial space industry
- JGJohn Gedmark
It is on us in the space industry to solve this problem. Getting people connected is just of such enormous value.
- SSSteph Smith
Why is in-flight wifi so bad today?
- JGJohn Gedmark
It's a very good question. The problem actually got worse. [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] How is that possible?
- JGJohn Gedmark
When you get access to the internet, you are getting access to the sum total of the world's knowledge. Yes, a lot of problems to solve.
- SSSteph Smith
It's like adding an extra lane on the highway, right?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, yes. [laughs] That's a, that's a great analogy. Yes, I think I'm gonna steal that. The biggest thing to be concerned about is orbital debris.
- SSSteph Smith
Building in space is just inherently hard.
- JGJohn Gedmark
It is a, a new golden age of space, for sure.
- SSSteph Smith
2022 was a record year for the space sector, with 186 successful rocket launches. That is 41 more than in 2021. So what are all these rockets bringing to orbit? And who, whether public or private, is on the other side of that market? Listen in as we talk to John Gedmark today, co-founder of Astranis, as we discuss this new golden era of space. John himself has been in the industry for decades, co-founding the Commercial Spaceflight Federation in 2006. And as of May, Astranis sent its first commercial satellite into orbit. And as John now builds his own satellites, he reflects on the transition from the government shuttle era, where satellites were literally the size of school buses and lasted for decades, to something much different. Plus, Astranis has a full Falcon 9 booked for later this year, as they hope to bring more connectivity to the mind-boggling four billion people that still do not have internet access. That is four billion people who cannot watch this video. All right, prepare for liftoff. [rocket roaring] As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. It should not be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures. [upbeat music] John, welcome to the show.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Ah, thank you for having me.
- SSSteph Smith
So you've been in space for a while. Uh, I think, what was it, in 2006, you helped found the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Why don't we start there? What caused you to wanna be a part of that way back then? Like, what did you see at the time?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, sure. Uh, I mean, that was back when the, this new industry was just getting off the ground, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
People were figuring out that they could, with private dollars, go and start a new space company and actually do something useful with sort of a-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, a non-giant government blank check, you know-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... amount of money. So I, I wanted to find, you know, basically the place where the action was happening. And I'm very lucky I, I, I actually found it. You know, I, I [laughs] went and looked around, and I started as an intern at the XPRIZE Foundation. You know, XPRIZE at the time, uh, is this non-profit organization-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... that develops these prizes for technological breakthroughs.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And, uh, at the time that, you know, the, the big prize was this $10 million prize-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... for a private company to launch people into space.
- SSSteph Smith
Yep.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And, uh, the, the company ended up winning that, that, that group, uh, and that technology ended up becoming, uh, what is now Virgin Galactic still today, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So, like, that really kicked off this, you know, this new wave of, of activity in the, in the space industry. But, uh, you know, one of the projects that I worked on was this new industry group-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- 4:19 – 7:29
The rise of private companies and startups in space
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
Right? I mean, maybe you can speak to that transition, because really for, for a few decades, it really was the government that was the primary home. And, uh, you also mentioned some of these large contractors.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Right.
- SSSteph Smith
But those were the entities driving space forward, right? And so now in 2023, things look pretty different. We've gone from the shuttle model to something with a lot more startups, a lot more grittiness, innovation, probably more failures along the way, but also it's just a totally different environment that went from the government now also to something, you know, these private companies-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yeah, it, it-
- SSSteph Smith
... at the game.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, it, it, it really is. I mean, I, I like to think of it as there were basically three eras of, uh, of, of spaceflight, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
There was the initial Apollo era, where we were in, it was this massive, almost monolithic government program, and everything was huge and epic in scale by design, 'cause we were trying to compete against the Soviet Union. Then we entered into this era in the, in the '80s, basically with the space shuttle. Things got very entrenched with these cost plus contracts.
- SSSteph Smith
Yes.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And the, the major aerospace and defense contractors were basically able to lock in, you know, these, these programs at a cost of billions of dollars, and they were just not going anywhere. It was like the-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, the space shuttle flew for, you know, almost three decades. And the craziest thing about the space shuttle is that it was basically a government ride to space that was totally, you know, it was owned and operated by the government, but private companies sometimes had no choice but to fly their satellites up on a, on a space shuttle to get into space.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And so it'd be like if we had, if there was some- You know, government-owned and operated fleet of cargo container ships that would take your cargo-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, that you wanted from point A to point B.
- SSSteph Smith
And that was the only route that you, you could take.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes. There, I mean, so there, there were certainly companies that tried over the, over the course of those decades, uh, to, to come up with new, uh, private vehicles, including in, you know, in the '90s there was, there was actually a huge number of, of startups that tried to do new, um, you know, new rockets basically.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
But they were, in effect, competing with this government monopoly.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
It's just like a weird, you know, that's a just a very weird place to be. So, um, I'm not sure that the, the conditions were really right until we got, uh, the end of that era, which I would, I would demarcate as like the retirement of, of the space shuttle.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And that retirement, it took a [laughs] took many years for the retirement to actually happen. It started with the Columbia disaster.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And that was finally when people said, "Okay, you know, we've been flying this thing for almost 25 years. It's time to retire it." And then it took several more years after that.
- SSSteph Smith
Right.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So you really had all these ingredients of basically private individuals who had made enough money in the dot-com boom and had this passion for space to go and take a run at it. On the government side, you had the retirement of the space shuttle coming up on the horizon as this-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- 7:29 – 9:41
Technological advancements fueling space innovation
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. So you're kind of calling out a few things. It sounds like the retirement of the, the government programs, but also a wave of dollars coming in from another industry. Were there any other changes that have really brought us to, like, this, what feels like a golden age of space innovation? Like, is it, like, regulatory changes? Is it, uh, technological innovation that's unlocked anything else? Like, anything you'd call out there as like, wow, maybe people don't realize that all of these kind of different inflection points, different waves coming together have resulted in, what was it last year? The most, the most satellites being launched, you know, on record and just a lot of things-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, for sure. Yeah
- SSSteph Smith
... are happening.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes. So there were ... the other one was just the technologies that were available-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... that were starting to become available, right? So for small satellites to be possible, you really needed this combination of technologies to all come together, right? One of them was actually just lithium-ion batteries.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Like, so the, the old satellites used to have lead-acid batteries that were absolutely these massive-
- SSSteph Smith
Massive, heavy
- JGJohn Gedmark
... massive, heavy things, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
You know, we, we all know about the benefits of that here on Earth because of we have one of those in every, you know, every, now every device that we carry, but, uh, but it actually also made a huge deal in b- us being able to shrink the size of satellites. Um, and then there's also, you know, new, uh, chips that became available at a lower cost. You know, it was just Moore's Law in action.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
There were some things that just got to the point where there was enough compute for a low enough price that it made sense, and then also some advances on the propulsion side. So there was really like a whole basket of technologies that started to come together and let, uh, companies like, one of the first ones was Skybox-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... uh, go and say, "Hey, we can, at, at actually surprisingly low cost, build a small satellite that will do this su- very useful thing, have a lot of capability in a small package-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... in a way that just, you know, would have never been capable before." Before, you know, would've taken a huge satellite, you know, uh, the size of a school bus. And, uh, and be able to raise venture capital dollars on that.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Right? And so that was a, that was a pretty, you know, that was a pretty big change.
- 9:41 – 13:17
Geostationary orbit satellites
- SSSteph Smith
Can you just kind of help us get a sense of size here? So you said, like, the old satellites were maybe as big as, as a school bus.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
When we're talking about these smaller satellites, like how, how big of a difference are we talking about?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yeah. So when we talk about small satellites, you know, it could be anything from a, a CubeSat, which is like a breadbox, up to, you know, something the size of a, of a, a large home appliance.
- SSSteph Smith
Okay.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Right? So like a kitchen range, um, you know, or a mini fridge, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
These government satellites are about the size of a mini fr- mini fridge. Our satellites at Astranis are a little bit larger than that, similar class, uh, you know, what we call microsatellites. The big satellites that historically cost several hundred million dollars each, um, you know, they are the size of a, of a school bus, if not like a double-decker, you know-
- SSSteph Smith
Oh my gosh
- JGJohn Gedmark
... big R- big red London double-decker bus.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So it's a huge difference.
- SSSteph Smith
You decided in 2015 to found Astranis, and so you'd by that point-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes
- SSSteph Smith
... been in this industry for at least a decade and gotten to see how this is evolving, all of the exciting opportunities. And so tell us a little bit about why specifically you've chosen to tackle the, the unique domain and lane that you have on these, like, smaller, uh, geostationary orbit satellites. Like, why that of all of the different things you could have chosen to do?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Totally. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I knew that I, I, I wanted to go and, you know, do something really disruptive in space. I mean, I, I knew that there was, and, and there still is, just massive amounts of value to be had-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... in doing things with these new approaches, small satellites, um, and doing them at a much, much lower cost than these, you know, historic big satellites, which were mostly done, these government, you know, big cost plus contracts, billion-dollar contracts. The thing about, uh, GEO and some of these other higher orbits is they, they are hard. You know, they, they're hard to operate in and they're harder to get to.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So it makes sense that when all those, those basket ... you know, all those different technologies came together that allowed people to build small satellites really for the first time, that they would start in, in lower orbit in LEO, right? That, that perfectly makes sense. But, uh, historically, GEO is actually the most valuable orbit.
- SSSteph Smith
Okay.
- JGJohn Gedmark
That is where the bulk of money has been spent to put satellites into orbit.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Uh, I mean, it's hard to know the exact numbers because a lot of it is classified.
- SSSteph Smith
Yes.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So these are like multi-billion dollar classified programs. I mean, multiple billions of dollars per satellite-
- SSSteph Smith
I see
- JGJohn Gedmark
... for some of these classified satellites, right? So, uh, you know, it could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. We-
- SSSteph Smith
No one knows
- JGJohn Gedmark
No one knows the exact number. But it is a big number that has been spent putting satellites up into GEO.
- 13:17 – 15:53
Challenges with operating satellites in geo orbit
- SSSteph Smith
I mean, to that point, I guess kind of two questions there. One, why was no one doing this? And probably related to this, like-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yeah
- SSSteph Smith
... tell us a little bit more about the difference between low Earth orbit, which is where a lot of different companies are now launching satellites into-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yeah
- SSSteph Smith
... and GEO, which is where you've chosen to go. Like, what is the difference there? And again, like, why was no one else doing this?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yeah, totally. I, it, so, um, the reason no one else was, was doing it is that it is hard, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
It, it, it is, um, uh, up at this high orbit where you're actually right in the thick of what we call the Van Allen radiation belts. So the satellites are just in, swimming in this sea of, uh, of radiation all the time. Uh, these, these belts have basically trapped all of this radiation that's come in from space. This is actually why Earth is such a pleasant place to live, because we have this magnetic field that then, uh, ends up, uh, basically being Earth's deflector shields.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So that's very beneficial for all of us on Earth.
- SSSteph Smith
Very convenient.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Very convenient. [laughs] Uh, thankfully. But it traps a lot of these particles, you know, any of these particles that are, that are ionized, they get trapped there like a magnetic bottle.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Right? And so there's just this soup of, uh, radiation and, and these ionized particles that satellites up in these high orbits are, are swimming in.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So it is hard. I mean, it is, the radiation effects that we have to design to, uh, and then we have to design all our electronics to qualify them, you know, uh, really make sure that they were gonna work in this radiation environment is just a massive additional challenge on top of-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... building, you know, all the normal challenges of building small satellites and building something that can, that will work in space. Which is already, you know, that, that's already hard. Like, that-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, anything in space is really not for the faint of heart. But, uh, you know, it clearly, it just is worth it. When, once you're up, any asset you can get up in that high orbit is just becomes this incredibly valuable thing. 'Cause you can park it over a country or part of the world and provide, you know, a service with just that one satellite.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So it ends up being this, like, structurally, uh, very low-cost approach, uh, covering an area-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... like a, like a, like an entire country with broadband and internet.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
But there's just clearly this massive value to be had-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... up in these higher orbits and geostationary orbit. Uh, and so, you know, somebody should, should-
- SSSteph Smith
Someone should do it
- JGJohn Gedmark
... somebody should go after it. Yeah.
- 15:53 – 17:52
Earth orbit (LEO) VS. geostationary orbit (GEO)
- SSSteph Smith
What gave you the confidence that the technology was there? Because you said space was hard already, and then, you know, now you're taking it to this, you know, N squared, let's say. And so was there any evidence per se-
- JGJohn Gedmark
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
... that you were like, "Oh, I, I do see how certain technologies are advancing even further." Or what gave you the confidence to say, "We can actually make this smaller, cheaper, more iterative"?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, for sure. Um, well, I would say there was a little bit maybe of, of hubris there. Um-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- JGJohn Gedmark
I would... [laughs] This is sort of a classic case of we, we, you know, we didn't know what we didn't know when we started the company back in, you know, 2015.
- SSSteph Smith
In an apartment, right?
- JGJohn Gedmark
And, and, yeah, in, uh, in, in my apartment, uh, myself and my, and my co-founder, Ryan. Um, we basically looked at how quickly and, uh, you know, sort of simply could we pull together all the right pieces for, um, you know, one of these satellites. And certainly at first blush, it do- you know, you could go and go out to this, this great space economy that we have now. We've got three different vendors we could buy, you know, this component from. We've got this com- you know, we could go get this. I think the, you know, what we didn't realize was really the magnitude of that gap between LEO and GEO, especially on the radiation environment. A lot of the components that you could buy were really designed for LEO satellites.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And once we dug into it, would just not work for us in GEO, you know. And, and that's, you know, that's not through any fault of the, uh, of the vendors. It was just designed for a different thing. So we ended up, it, it ended up being a lot more work to find, you know, really, like... And sometimes it was like a needle in a haystack to find either the right component that, that we could use or, uh, we ended up having to design our own, you know, and, and run with the, run with that.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Because we just, there was, there's nothing out there that would
- 17:52 – 22:57
How satellite technology can bridge the digital divide
- JGJohn Gedmark
work.
- SSSteph Smith
Okay. So let's talk about some of those satellites, uh, including the one that's already up there. You've chosen specifically, again, to be in GEO and to have these smaller satellites that target, um, internet.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
Uh, or provide internet to folks in specific regions.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
Why, why that of all the different functionalities that satellites can offer? And then also just, like, tell me a little bit more about this question of just how many people on Earth actually don't have access to internet.
- JGJohn Gedmark
To be clear, it, I, I think this is the most valuable thing that we can do in space, right? There are a lot of things you can only do in space.
- SSSteph Smith
Right.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Just from having this vantage point of being that high-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... and looking down and seeing, you know, a good chunk of the Earth or-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, basically this, this whole Earth view. But getting people connected is just of such enormous value, right? It's like it really changes people's lives.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Uh, being able to have access to healthcare information, being able to get education, educate themselves. When you get access to the internet, you are getting access to the sum total of the world's knowledge-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... in one, you know, in basically one-
- SSSteph Smith
We forget that sometimes. [laughs]
- JGJohn Gedmark
We do forget that, yes. [laughs] Yes, we did, you know, it tends to get lost now in the-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, the Instagram era. But if you had nothing and no access to the internet, having then that door opened, you know, to the entire, you know, suddenly having access to the entire world's knowledge on any topic you could imagine, right? I mean, talk about a massive enabler for-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... people to improve their lives, you know, economic growth, all the rest. It, it's, it's a huge deal. So, you know, that combines with, I think, the place where we're at with connectivity today around the world. I think we have essentially reached the people we're gonna reach with fiber. Fiber, laying fiber is enormously expensive and difficult, right? In, in a lot of countries, it's, it's done, uh, by trenching and then there's all these other, you know, complicating factors, rights of way, like someone's, you're going through someone's land. And, and especially in a world where people are mobile first, it's even more challenging because what you really want is you want cell towers just everywhere. Building the cell tower is relatively cheap compared to the value it's gonna create of getting those people in that area connected.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Right? Very cheap. Uh, really all of the, the problem to be solved is in this connecting that cell tower to the internet.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
That's what we call the, the backhaul problem. Um, and so that is, that is what we realized was this key problem to go and solve. And, uh, so we have found a, a set of customers in countries around the world that, uh, are either telcos or service providers for those telcos who, uh, you know, help them manage their cell towers, that basically are buying this capacity in large quantities. Uh, now once we've got a satellite up, there's a number of other customers that all, you know, spring up and want connectivity.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, it's like adding an extra lane on the highway, right? Like it ends up, the, the demand for it ends up filling up.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, yes. [laughs] That's a, that's a great analogy. Yes. I think I'm gonna steal that. Uh... [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Listen to all of the podcasts.
- 22:57 – 25:40
Solving the 4 billion person global connectivity problem
- SSSteph Smith
And you're, you're not necessarily in some of these cases competing directly with, oh, there's all these other satellites or there's this fiber-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Mm-hmm
- SSSteph Smith
... that's already been laid that we're now trying to, you know, be more cost efficient than. In many of these cases, these people just don't have any internet, right? You're, there's no competition, at least... You know, I, I watched your video about the Philippines. I felt like that one in particular really drilled that notion where, um, I think it was like, you know, the Philippines has 7,000 islands.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
Like imagine laying fiber to all of those different remote locations. Maybe you can just speak to that. And I think you said, I, I think one time in, in an interview you said just like, "How is it that 4 billion people still don't have access to internet?" And that also is like a true. [laughs] You know, how, how does that many, how do that many humans not have that access?
- JGJohn Gedmark
So people used to talk about the other three billion that don't have access to the internet-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... when, you know, the internet was first really taking off. Now it's the other 4 billion. The problem actually got worse. [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] How is that possible?
- JGJohn Gedmark
I know. It, it... Yes. It, it, how is that possible? It, it doesn't seem right. It seems actually quite, uh... It's, it's quite astounding that it, that somehow we've not only failed to solve the problem, the problem actually got worse over time, not better. It, it, it just, there's a limit to where it makes sense to run fiber or it's even physically possible to run fiber. You know, talk about people out on very remote places or out on islands, uh, places that have very rough terrain ar- around, you know, whether it's mountains or jungles or deserts. Those populations have been growing over time, but we have failed to, you know, expand the reach of our fiber networks to, to meet that. So it is on us in the space industry to solve this problem. I do not see any other means solving it. I mean, you know, people have looked at, like, balloons and, you know, drones that are stay up for days at a time and are trying to beam down the internet. Those things are... That's pretty tough. There's high operations costs of-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, these things that, you know, you have to, like, deal with the weather, and they have to be refueled, and you bring them down and, and that is a... You know, there's a, there's possibly some solution there that could work. I would love to see it, but I really do think it's on us in the space business to solve this problem and, and we have to, you know, we have to figure out how to do that. You know, we're talking about one of the world's most epic problems here, so it's on the order of scale of solving the world's energy problems, solving the world's food problems.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
You know, where it's just gonna take a, a basket of solutions to be able to solve, solve this, you know, connectivity problem everywhere that people want.
- SSSteph Smith
So you've kind of talked about the internet connectivity
- 25:40 – 31:29
Government as a buyer of satellite services
- SSSteph Smith
side of things, but there's also some government buyers, right, of, of these satellites and, and their functionality. So what is the government looking for in, in those cases where they are the person, you know-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Right
- SSSteph Smith
... or, or the entity buying the solution?
- JGJohn Gedmark
You know, anyone in our position, uh, a company doing new technology for space, uh, for aerospace, you know, there's a, by, uh, al- almost by definition there are national security implications of, of what we do. So there is almost always, uh, you know, I think if you're, if you're doing things right, there's almost always gonna be this point where the US government comes in, you know, sort of knocks on your door and is like, "Hey, what, what, what are you doing over there?" Uh... [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
Is this, like, a hypothetical knock on the door? Or do they literally show up to your home?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Um, yeah, no, we haven't had...
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- JGJohn Gedmark
No, no, they, they use email. Uh, they, [laughs] they, um, you know, they don't l- literally just show up at your-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... show up at your office. But, uh, for us in Space Force, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
So this is the US military saying, "Hey, there's real, uh, you know, applications here for US national security." Um, what they're looking for is the same as I think anybody else. They need, uh, reliable communications. There's many different flavors of that. Uh, and, and so if they're out operating in remote places, and that in, you know, that includes in the case of a conflict, that's also just the Navy when they're out at sea. That's, you know, it's really across the board.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
They need, uh, they need broadband comps, right? And they need, they need as much of it as they can get. It's like it's never enough. Uh, and to make sure they have that reliably, they want that through multiple, you know, multiple channels, multiple paths, and ideally, you know, in a, uh, get everything set up-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... so that they could just seamlessly switch between different things. You know, no different than your cell phone.
- SSSteph Smith
Right.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Switching between your, your home Wi-Fi and then switching to the cell tower when you leave your house, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
I mean, they just want many, many different options. You know, we are more than happy to, to do our part and get some extra capability, extra bandwidth up in GEO. And I think what's different in our case is we can, you know, we can, we can do this with small satellites that are, that are, um, you know, it's more the swarm approach. So with the traditional big GEO satellites, costs a billion dollars each. This is only, you know, for each... And then geostationary, you know, you can divide up the world by region and over, you know, a given region that we might care about, uh, Asia for example, there might only be a handful of these satellites that we're totally dependent on.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Where it would be devastating if those satellites were, were all taken out-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... at the start of a conflict. The, you know, the military communication satellites, I think there's roughly a dozen that cover the whole world, so they're spread around the whole world. So they're, you know, over a place, over Asia there's j- there's just a, a couple.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Um, so where Space Force got excited about, I think our, you know, ability to, to add value here is in taking this swarm approach up into that, uh, higher orbit.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
You know, deploying a large number of small satellites that can provide all kinds of, uh, communications capability and be, you know, uh, more scattered around, be more maneuverable.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Uh, and you know, it's just a much harder, uh, you know, it's just m- it'd be a much harder thing to take out each one. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia was a big moment-
- 31:29 – 33:19
The technological updates needed in satellite technology
- SSSteph Smith
security threat. Like-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, yes. 100%. Yes. The, the, this, this lack of refresh-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- JGJohn Gedmark
... of new technology and taking into account all the advances, uh, you know, is a real issue. Yeah. I, it, you know, in, in some ways, satellite technology is just one of these last, especially in, especially in geo, is just one of these last places where we did not move to smaller hardware that you could build faster and iterate on more quickly-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- JGJohn Gedmark
... and do a faster refresh of technology, right? Every, every, everything else that we use today across, you know, our lives, both in-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... both, you know, in business and, and at home has gotten smaller and smaller and, you know, faster and faster refresh of technology, right?
- SSSteph Smith
It's kind of a great point 'cause you imagine around the same time as some of these satellites went up, that's when you had computers the size of a room, and now we have computers the size of our phones that fit in our pocket. But you're saying basically the satellites going up-
- JGJohn Gedmark
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
... are still the size, right?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Oh, yes. I mean, if anything, it, it, it's actually even crazier than that. If anything, they've gotten bigger and bigger over time.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Instead of smaller and smaller. They somehow, you know, got, found themselves in this, you know, part of, part of the design space where they got, they fell into this, you know, local optima descending down this, uh, down this plane, and that's driving them to go bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes on. Which it... And then-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... then we find out actually that has all kinds of problems associated with it.
- SSSteph Smith
It's bizarre. So satellites are getting bigger. We're actually having more people with no internet. Um.
- JGJohn Gedmark
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
So some interesting phenomena happening over this period.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes. A lot of problems to solve. Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
Um, on that note, maybe we can talk, just zoom out a little bit in terms of the satellite economy,
- 33:19 – 38:29
Opportunities in the satellite and space industry
- SSSteph Smith
but really just all of the infrastructure being built for space. And maybe you could just share a little bit more about what you're excited about when it comes to like, let's say, the next five, 10, 20 years. What gets you excited and, and what do you think maybe people are overlooking as potential in this industry?
- JGJohn Gedmark
I would say that, you know, we, we don't know yet where these other sources of value are gonna, are gonna be. Um, you know, it, is asteroid mining going to be a, a, a massive business opportunity? I think we're, we're still figuring that out. There's definitely enough things there that I think clearly we're, it's just gonna, it is gonna drive us further and further out into space.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
And, uh, what I think is really exciting is, you know, it, you just continue to see the space economy just absolutely blossoming with w- larger, you know, larger and larger numbers of companies trying to, you know, fill in all of the, fill in these different pieces.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Uh, there's talk of both government programs and private programs to put people back on the moon. Well, all, if, if we're gonna do that, and then whether it's government or private, any kind of expedition of that type or setting up a lunar base is just gonna need all kinds of other, you know, pieces of, uh, of, of, of this sort of overall economy and infrastructure, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Uh, people are gonna be operating on the lunar surface. You're gonna need, uh, communications infrastructure. That's something we've thought about and, and looked at a little bit. Um, the moon will need its own GPS system. If you're on the lunar surface, you wanna know where you are. Same thing as, uh, on the Earth. You wanna be able to just pull up, you know, uh, Google Maps. [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- JGJohn Gedmark
Navigate back to your lunar base, right? And then have that, uh, have that, uh, position be, uh, um, you know, very precise thanks to, uh, a lunar GPS. We're gonna need all kinds of transport of, of cargo, uh, you know, fuel, food, water, all of these things. We're gonna need, uh, cargo ships, probably of a variety of sizes and types that can take things either, you know, to lunar orbit or up and down from the lunar surface.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- JGJohn Gedmark
There's a huge amount there. There's just, you know, to me, there's no question there's a ton of, uh, of opportunity for companies to go and, and sort of f- you know, carve out a specific part of that ecosystem and be really, really good at, you know, doing that specific thing as a service or building that-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- JGJohn Gedmark
... building that, um, that component.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. Well, it sounds like there's a lot of opportunity. And maybe to close things off, because we do have a lot of people who are current founders or maybe some of these future founders carving out some slice of that market. Like, you have, to some extent, made it to the other side. You've had your first launch earlier this year, and you have another one coming later this year. Um, I just wanna ask you-
- JGJohn Gedmark
Four satellites on it
- SSSteph Smith
... Exactly.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes.
- SSSteph Smith
So even bigger, you have your dedicated Falcon 9 launch. Like, that's, that's pretty awesome. Like, does it feel that way? I just want, you know, as a person-
- JGJohn Gedmark
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
... who spent the last eight years on this with maybe not full certainty that it would work out. How did it feel? Like, I watched that YouTube video that we'll link, you know, in the show notes of, of that first launch and your team, uh, watching this go up and I was, like, getting emotional during it 'cause I was like, am I s- And then I read the comments and other people are like, "Why am I tearing up?"
- JGJohn Gedmark
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
And it's like, I guess it's because it is, like, quite the feat. Does it feel that way on your end as well?
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yes. [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- JGJohn Gedmark
Yep. No, there's, uh, there's no question. You know, having seen a rocket go up that has, uh, you know, a satellite on it, especially, you know, you've spent, spent years getting to that point, that is, that is something special. Um, the next one will be, uh, and then take it to the next level because, you know, with the dedicated launch it'll be our-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- JGJohn Gedmark
... you know, it'll be the Astranis logo on that rocket, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Yes.
- JGJohn Gedmark
Uh, and just knowing that that, that rocket is going, rocket is going up just, just for us. So that's a pretty big, yeah, that's gonna be a pretty big moment.
Episode duration: 38:29
In the uListen app, the transcript lights up word by word as you listen. Get uListen
Transcript of episode XAKjzjUCppE
